


Empty Sheets

by purplelacemoon



Category: Billary - Fandom, Political RPF - US 20th c.
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-26 12:18:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15000728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplelacemoon/pseuds/purplelacemoon
Summary: Resigned to spending his nights on the couch, something wakes Bill from his sleep...





	Empty Sheets

**Author's Note:**

> This wasn't really a story I planned on writing but this idea came to me the other night while I was listening to this song and so I decided to neglect everything else I'd started while I at least had the inspiration to finish this! It's only fairly short and I'm not sure how plausible it really is considering I don't know the exact extent of Bill's hearing difficulties, so reality might be kinda slightly suspended a little where that's concerned. But I've finished exams for the summer now anyway so hopefully I should get some other stories published too before long!!
> 
> \- as always this is 100% fiction and of course the lyrics belong to the original owner -

**September 1998**

_You’ve been having real bad dreams,_  
_You used to lie so close to me,_  
_There’s nothing more than empty sheets between our love._

Bill stirred from his sleep unsettled, his eyes rapidly blinking open in attempt to adjust to the darkness of the room and instantly he could tell that something wasn’t quite right, though he wasn’t entirely sure yet what exactly had woken him.  
  
He peered into the darkness in silence for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts and wondering whether there had been a knock at the door with an emergency that required his attention. He glanced toward the solid oak paneling that led out into the corridor but nobody burst through it, no shadows moved beneath the door signalling to somebody’s presence there and so he strained all of his concentration to listening hard in order to work out what the disturbance had been.  
  
Then he heard it again.  
  
The distinct shuffling sound coming from the next room which had stirred him from his sleep. The sound of sheets being kicked at and the faintest sound of erratic breathing and softly distressed whimpers. _Hillary._  
  
Bill shot out of bed in an instant and crossed the floor to the smaller connecting door which separated the bedroom from the office he was currently re-purposing as his sleeping quarters. His hearing hadn’t been his most reliable sense in recent years, but an overriding instinct and reflex always seemed to kick him into high alert where she was concerned, something for which he was endlessly thankful for. Going right back to their early years together one of the very first things Bill had ever learnt about his wife was that she often experienced disturbed sleep and nightmares when she was distressed or had something unpleasant weighing on her mind. He had first encountered this when he had gone to stay with her in Washington during her work on the impeachment inquiry staff in the spring of 1974. The intense level of stress she'd been under coupled with the classified nature of her work preventing her from offloading anything on her mind during the day had meant that it very often all came out in her sleep instead. The nights he had been there with her he had comforted her when she had woken up shaking, often on the brink of tears and he'd held her close until she felt secure enough to fall back to sleep again. From then on, whenever he couldn’t be there beside her they had begun their tradition of always telephoning each other before going to sleep. It wasn’t always a guaranteed remedy to her unpleasant dreams, but she had assured him time and time again how much it helped and he was relieved that the frequency of her bad nights slowed considerably when he was there curled up next to her.  
  
Despite his initial hurry to get into the next room and be with her Bill hesitated once his fingers clasped around the door handle. He wasn’t entirely sure whether or not his comfort was still welcome in the way it always had been in the past, and the last thing in the world he wanted to do was to make her feel any worse at that moment. As he weighed up his options, another heart wrenching sob echoed through the wall between them and instantly made his decision for him, before he knew it he had crossed the threshold and tentatively entered the room.  
  
The curtains had been left open just an inch so that moonlight spilled into the otherwise darkened room and illuminated Hillary’s body curled up on the bed. Bill felt his heart lurch inside his chest as his gaze fell upon her lying there, all alone in the bed they used to share together. The bed in which one month earlier he had woken her and sent her world shattering around her in pieces.

It had always been a privilege for him to sleep beside her, one he knew he had taken for granted more times than he cared to remember but one he had always, always cherished. Seeing her at her most vulnerable; face bare of all the makeup she had adopted into her daily routine and hair tousled and natural much like it was the very first day he met her, totally at peace and lost in her dreams. Usually at least.    
  
Bill approached the bed as Hillary’s tossing and turning increased, her breathing escalating to a panicked rate that usually indicated she was about to wake up and Bill sat down on the edge of the sheets beside her and gently placed his hand on her shoulder, still slightly unsure as to what her reaction to his being there would be, but yearning to provide some level of comfort nonetheless.  
  
“Hill,” He whispered her name softly into the dark in an effort to ease her distress and let her know he was there.  
  
Just on the brink between sleep and consciousness Hillary let out a soft cry before her eyelashes finally fluttered open. All of her natural defenses down, the tears that had already began forming in her eyes before she had woken slipped down her cheeks and she gasped a few shallow breaths as Bill quickly wrapped his arms around her, gently holding her head to his chest as he stroked his other hand along her back in slow soothing circles.  
  
“Shhh, it’s okay. Everything’s okay honey.” The irony in his choice of comforting words was not lost on him in the slightest, but in her distressed disoriented state he knew it was what she needed to hear. The truth could wait until morning to rear its ugly head again.  
  
Bill held her as she cried for a short while longer, rocking her slightly trembling form until much to his relief she gradually stilled against him and fell silent. The gentle sound of her slowly regulating breathing became all that filled the room and Bill felt her body start to relax in his arms.  
  
“Do you wanna talk about?” His raspy southern accent sounded even more pronounced in the quiet dead of night somehow, and although she couldn’t quite bring herself to say anything Hillary was grateful for the comfort it brought.  
  
Bill took her silence as a ‘no’ in answer to that particular question, and as he held her close he wondered regretfully to himself whether _he_ had in fact been the subject matter of whatever dream had gotten her into such a state.

He kissed the top of her golden haired head softly, not daring to ask any further questions but quietly cherishing her allowing him to hold her and realizing just how much he missed having her so close.  
  
Several minutes of comfortable silence passed before either of them spoke again.  
  
“You can stay if you want.” Hillary quietly offered in a small voice that few others beside her husband would ever recognize as her own. Bill must have looked more shocked than he intended to by that offer because she quickly added clarification, “Just tonight. If you want.”  
  
Her reiterating that particular condition a second time broke Bill’s heart, reminding him yet again just how much doubt he had reawakened in her to ever even question that he wanted to spend every single one of his nights by her side.  
  
She was avoiding making eye contact with him now, toying with the fabric of the t-shirt she had worn to bed as she tried to fight off her body’s natural need to fall back to sleep a little while longer as she waited in uncertainty for his answer.  
  
“Of course I want to.” Bill reassured her, equally as softly and their eyes slowly met in the dark. Hillary’s vision was already fuzzy without her glasses in the darkness of the bedroom but their close proximity meant that she could still see him, the silver moonlight casting shadows over the features she knew so well and outlining his silhouette in front of her. For a moment she fought against the urge to reach out and touch him, longing to feel that connection and closeness in the bed they used to share after spending what already felt like an endless number of nights there alone. Gazing intently at each other they stayed quiet, both with so much to say and both knowing this was neither the time nor the place for any of those conversations as the dark velvet sky outside crept closer and closer to dawn and with it, the reality that would tear them both back to opposite sides of the rift that now existed between them once again.     
  
Hillary didn’t seem to want to talk anymore, eyelids already feeling heavy as she settled herself back against the cool cotton of her pillow and pulled the bedsheets back up over her body. Bill followed her lead and climbed in next to her, listening to the gentle sound of her breathing as he slowly inched closer and closer to her, still unsure how much physical contact she was ready for but longing to be as close as possible. Eventually he settled for tentatively resting his hand against her shoulder, feeling her tense for just a moment but relieved when she didn’t flinch away. He started stroking gently along her upper back in a routine that was second nature to them both after twenty seven years side by side, feeling her muscles start to relax as she began to drift back off to sleep and in that moment it was like nothing had changed at all. It was just the two of them, in their bed, _together_. No scandal, no world prying into the state of their relationship, no heartbreak or betrayal or isolating separation. Just for one night, everything was almost exactly the way it always had been and the way Bill hoped with all his heart things would be again.

  
_Just a second we're not broken just bent and we can learn to love again_  
_I never stopped, you're still written in the scars on my heart_  
_We’re not broken just bent and we can learn to love again_

  
The next morning, Hillary was already gone by the time Bill woke up. He glanced at the clock, mentally going over her schedule which he always kept roughly memorized and realized in disappointment that she had an early start that day. He slid his hand longingly over to the empty side of the bed where she had slept, feeling the coolness of the sheets without the warmth of her body against them. The room felt stiller without her presence and Bill wished had woken in time to get up with her and talk, although in the cold light of day he found everything he wanted to express had begun to escape him again.  
  
They didn’t cross paths again until later that day when they both had to briefly deliver remarks at a lunchtime forum. The hectic flurry of activity that day left little room for much actual conversation between the two of them, but as they brushed past each other on their way to the podium Hillary gave him a small smile and lightly squeezed his hand before picking up her notes and heading back to her chair. Bill’s heart leapt in delight at the brief contact, understanding her way of expressing what he knew she couldn't quite bring herself to voice.  
  
_‘Thank you’_  
  
They still had a long road ahead of them, but little by little and step by step, they knew they were moving in the right direction. 

>   
>  _“Life is not a linear progression. It has many paths and challenges. And we need to help one another.”_  
>  _“And it is love, isn’t it?”_  
>  _“Yes, it is. We have love.” - Hillary Rodham Clinton_

 


End file.
